


do not go gently

by luminoussbeings



Series: that good night [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Trans Peter, if you’ve seen iw you know the MCD so, the mj/peter isn't central but still present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14520039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminoussbeings/pseuds/luminoussbeings
Summary: Here’s the thing: Peter’s no stranger to his own death. He’s seen it played out in his mind a hundred different times, a hundred different ways.But never like this.(or: Peter's going to make things right, and that purple bastard is going to pay.)





	1. Chapter 1

Here’s the thing: Peter’s no stranger to his own death. He’s seen it played out in his mind a hundred different times, a hundred different ways.

But never like this.

He stumbles forward. Something snares him before his knees strike the ground—Mr. Stark. “Please,” he gasps, chin clanking against an armored shoulder as Mr. Stark’s arms hold him tight.

But not tight enough.

“ _Please_ ,” he says again, pleading, because he’s slipping, he can _feel_ it, can feel every inch of his enhanced DNA waging war for its own existence—can feel it _losing_ — _I don’t want to go I don’t want to go please I don’t want to go_ —

Mr. Stark is saying something, but the words reach him distorted, garbled, like he’s already hearing them from somewhere else—somewhere far away— _beyond_ —his breathing shallows as he clutches desperately at the torn metal of Stark’s suit, as if that could somehow ground him, save him—

“You’re okay, you’re alright, you’re okay.” Stark’s words finally reach him and Peter nods, sliding softly to the ground. He’s okay. Mr. Stark wouldn’t lie to him. Mr. Stark wouldn’t lie to him—

— _I don’t want to go not yet_ please _not yet_ —

— _Come on, Spiderman_ —

His eyes slide to the side. The landscape smolders, smoke swirling in hazy drifts as embers rise and fall like stars. Like angels.

He thinks: _I’m okay, I’m alright._ Then his mind crumbles to ash, and he thinks no more.

***

When Peter comes to, his mouth tastes like soot.

He runs his thumb across his knuckles, the last fuzzy moments of half-sleep curling around him like warm steam. He’s got a few minutes, he figures, before Aunt May barges in and tells him to get his ass to school, because if he comes home with _one more_ tardy slip Lord help her she’ll—

He blinks. That’s not right. He already woke up for school, got there early, even, because he sure as hell wasn’t gonna miss the field trip—the field trip. The bus. That _thing_ , that massive gray wheel hanging low in the sky, the electric thrill through his veins as he swung towards it—towards danger, yes, but also towards something _really_ _fucking_ _cool_. Eyes still shuttered, he grins, picturing the look on Ned’s face when he tells him all about the space ship—

It hits him like a bulldozer to the chest.

Thanos, their almost win and abject failure, all of it—that was _real_. And that means—that means—

His eyes fly open and he bolts upright, fingers scrambling at the ground beneath him. Dead. He’s….dead, for real this time, not like the time he passed out on the first day of Anatomy Lab and woke up blinking at the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, convinced he‘d died and somehow wrangled his way to heaven (Liz was almost pretty enough to keep him from immediately swearing off “squishy science” and transferring to an engineering track—almost.)

No, he thinks, digging his nails into the soft flesh of his palm. He _feels_ almost normal, but...he recalls the way that very same palm had crumbled and blown away, a sandcastle under a cyclone, torn apart by some unseen force—and he feels it in his bones (he still has bones, right? Ghost bones?), that this time, he’s dead for good.

He almost laughs, or maybe cries—the difference between the two suddenly seems meaningless. There’d been a time when he’d gone to bed every night wishing to wake up where he is now, when he’d’ve done almost anything to follow his parents. And now—seriously, _fuck_ whatever divine dickhead controls the universe, _fuck_ it—now that he’s got Ned and MJ and Spiderman and Mr. Stark and the Avengers, now that he’s finally _happy_ — _now_ is the time the universe finally decides it wants him dead?

“Great freaking timing,” he says aloud, and kicks at the ground, vicious and swift. Clouds of ash scatter in his wake, and he stops, taking in his surroundings for the first time.

The world is a picture of gray. Gray haze fills the air, gray ash blankets the ground, gray figures stumble in the distance—wait. _Figures?_ He squints, but can’t make out any details. Shrugging, he starts toward the closest one. A part of his mind informs him that maybe approaching mysterious figures in a deathscape _might_ not be his smartest bet, but he shoves the thought aside. He’s already dead, after all—what else does he have to lose?

The figure is getting clearer now, though the fog obscures most details save the four-legged silhouette. His pulse quickens and he plows through the ash, wondering suddenly if he still has his superpowers as a dead person. With luck, it won’t come to that.

But lately, luck hasn’t been something he can trust.

At last, he gets close enough to see the figure and falters in surprise. Concern sloshes away his leftover anger and he rushes forward, kneeling in front of it— _her_ , for it’s not a four-legged beast after all, but a woman. Her palms splay on the ground as she rocks forward on her knees, chest quaking with sobs.

“Miss?” Peter says. “Miss, are you alright?”

The woman says nothing, only shakes harder.

“Miss,” Peter tries again, “I can help you.” _Can I?_ “I can help you,” he repeats, firm but soothing, “but you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

The woman slowly lifts her head. Tears carve trails down her face, pearly with dust. “My baby,” she chokes out.

“Your baby?” Peter scans the immediate area, but finds nothing. “Is it here?”

The woman shakes her head. “No. No, I can’t...my _baby_ , she’s all _alone_ , and I have to get to her, but I can’t, I _can’t_ —”

“Can you breathe with me?” Peter interrupts before she works herself into more of a spiral. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. That’s it. In, out.” _In, out,_ he repeats to himself, as much for his sake as for hers, because a sick coil in his gut tells him where this is going.

“In my apartment,” the woman starts again. “She was on my hip while I cooked. Spaghetti-o’s, again, because they’re her favorite, and I can get ‘em cheap at the supermarket, and I’d just—I’d just turned on the burner, and then my hand—it just _disappeared_. And Lily was crying and then suddenly I dropped her, only I _didn’t_ drop her, she just _fell_ —and now I’m here—and there’s no one to take care of her, and _oh God the oven_ —” The woman breaks off into sobs, and Peter sits back on his heels.

He has to say something, has to help her, help _them_ , somehow, but—he’s at a loss. Helpless. He feels small, like a child at the base of a skyscraper.

A wail cuts through his thoughts. He looks to the woman, but she seems just as confused as him—and then the wind shifts, unearthing a squalling baby from the ash.

“ _Lily!_ ” the woman cries, scooping the baby into her arms. She holds her to her chest for a long moment, tucking her nose against the baby’s forehead. Finally, the woman turns back to Peter, her eyes shining. “Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but— _thank you_.”

“Wait, _no_ , I didn’t—” Peter protests, but the woman’s already gone, cradling her child and walking onward into the mist.

His head reels. That baby—he knows what her presence here means, but from the look on her mother’s face when they reunited—he can’t bring himself to wish it were otherwise. The ethics of the situation turn his mind into a swamp. He tries to sift through it, but only one clear thought emerges—Thanos.

It wasn’t the universe that had wanted him dead, he realizes. No, that blame belongs to Thanos alone, Thanos and his sick scheme that ripped apart families and stole lives-- _his_ life, too, though he’s beginning to see that this is a whole lot bigger than him.

He watches the woman’s retreating form until it blurrs indistinguishably into the mist. He wonders where she’s headed, whether she’ll find any peace in this place. He hopes so.  

For his part, Peter isn’t looking for peace.

He’s looking for justice. For him, for the woman and her child, for the billions torn from their lives, from everything they love.

And one way or another, he’s going to find it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be writing a 4 page paper due in like 24 hours but instead my brain has been just. [slams fist on desk like j jonah jameson] WRITE FICS OF SPIDERMAN!!
> 
> if you ever had time to comment I would greatly appreciate it! <3


	2. Chapter 2

Finding justice is harder than Peter anticipates.

For one, Thanos isn’t even _here_ —at least, if he is, he didn’t respond to Peter’s shouted summons. (And why would he be here? He’s already killed them all—presumably, he has better things to do than stick around to rub it in.)

And then there’s the matter of his powers. As far as he can tell, he’s still got them, but…webslinging’s a lot less useful in a flat, featureless wasteland than in a city overflowing with handy rooftops and fire escapes. If he needs to defend himself in here, it’ll come down to the trusty “web-in-the-face” and good old fashioned right hook.

Which is fine. Because Peter’s not at all scared of whatever other hellish creatures he might’ve joined on this plane.

Not one bit.

Still, he can’t help but long for Aunt May, for those warm arms to hold him tight, a hand circling his back like the nights after he’d first moved in, when every sunset brought another round of nightmares about—

His eyes fly open. _His parents._ How had he never realized this before? They’re dead, and he’s dead, and now they can finally reunite, just one big happy dead family. He starts to call for his mom—then his mouth snaps shut.

They won’t recognize him. He laughs a sharp, hollow note. Of all the things… He wonders if his parents _are_ here, watching the influx of people and looking for him. Calling a name that’s not his. Looking for a daughter who never really existed.

No. He sets his jaw. They’re his _parents_ —they’ll have to know it’s him. Maybe they’ve been watching him from above, all these years, although… Peter casts a glance around. If there’s any way to spy on the world below ( _is_ it below? He certainly doesn’t feel very high) then it’s either buried under heaps of dust, or it doesn’t exist at all.

He decides to ignore the latter and call for his Mom.

***

Hours later, his dragging feet stir up clouds of dust in his wake. He’s tried everything—calling his parents’ names, yelling every variation of _It’s me, Peter, remember? the thing you birthed?_ he can think of, even forcing out his dead name, biting back the old bitterness that claws up his throat with each hateful syllable—to no avail.

His voice cracks before giving out completely. Clenching his fists, he plants his feet on the ground and squeezes his eyes shut, willing away the hot tears beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes.

Maybe they don’t want to see him.

Maybe they don’t want anything to do with a _son_ , only the “daughter” they left behind.

Maybe he’s just as alone here as he was that last night he waited for them at the apartment, the dread in his stomach mounting with each tick of the clock.

Why else wouldn’t they come? They’ve had almost ten freaking years to wait for him, yet they still—

“They’re not here.”

Peter whirls. A tall man watches him with an unreadable expression, dark skin powdered with a fine layer of dust. Peter squints. Something about him seems familiar—his eyes widen. “King T’Challa?”

The man—T’Challa—inclines his head.

“Wow, uh, hi, your highness,” Peter manages. It takes a beat for him to recover enough to wonder how the royal whose interviews he’s watched obsessively on CNN knows enough about him to know what he was after. “Wait—what?”

“Your parents,” says the King. “They passed away before all this happened, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they are not here.” T'Challa says simply.

“But I thought we were—”

“Dead?” The ghost of a wry smile touches his lips. “No. Trust me. I have seen my true afterlife, and this,” he casts a distasteful look at their surroundings, “is not it.”

Peter’s head feels like scrambled eggs. He wants to deny it, but something in T’Challa’s voice rings pure as truth. “So, if we’re not actually dead,” he says slowly, “then where the hell are we?”

“Somewhere…in between.”

Okay. Peter has no idea what that means, but that’s okay. He can work with this. He’s not dead, he’s got a new royal buddy, he’s— “Hey! Where are you going?”

“There are people I need to find,” T’Challa says, raising an eyebrow at Peter over his shoulder. “I suggest you do the same.”

Peter nods weakly. “Cool, yeah, um, I’ll do that.” A part of him wants to beg T’Challa not to leave him alone, but the part of him that’s trying to save him from massive embarrassment makes him shut his mouth.

“Nice to see you again, Peter Parker,” T’Challa says, and walks off into the mist.

Peter watches him go. Something in that posture seems familiar—wait, did he say _again_? He shakes his head. Peter thinks he’d remember meeting a royal—then it hits him. “You’re the Black Panther!” he calls.

T’Challa’s laugh sounds from the distance.

Wow. He just—wow.

He forces himself to be amazed later; right now, he has new information to sort through. _People I need to find._ Peter _had_ people he needed to find, too, but—the loss bowls him out again. He’s not going to see his parents. For all his doubting, he’d still believed they’d find him, somehow. But now—but now—

He’s squeezing his fists tight enough that his fingernails should be drawing blood, but he doesn’t really feel it. _God_. He needs Uncle Ben, he needs Aunt May, he needs Ned, he needs someone who loves him to hold him tight and tell him it’s all going to be okay—

“Peter?”

Oh, fuck. The moment of hope he’d had when he first heard his name crumbles when he recognizes the voice. _Definitely_ not going to be embraced now, unless she’s putting him in another “friendly” chokehold.

He turns around slowly, hoping desperately that it doesn’t look like he’s been crying, and offers a weak smile.

“What’s up, loser?” MJ says, picking at her nails.

 


End file.
